


Rainbow

by Jaelijn



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 14:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12683694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: A.... splash of colour.





	Rainbow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the final one to come to AO3 of the set of three that were first published as part of issue 1 of the all things B7 zine (completely free and digital) that I had the pleasure of editing, [Rebels and Fools](https://rebelsandfools.tumblr.com/post/164487288938/rebels-and-fools-issue-1). You can find the details and the download link to the first issue under that link!

Later, Blake wasn’t sure whether it had been Jenna or Vila’s shriek of horror in the hallway that woke him from his nap, or both. He stumbled blearily out of his cabin, just to catch Vila saying: “Jenna, you’re _blue_!”

Blake rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned mightily. He was sure he had misheard.

Only then Jenna exclaimed: “Have you seen yourself?!”

Blake tried groggily to focus on the scene before him. “What’s going on?”

Jenna turned around to him, and suddenly both she and Vila were laughing – huge, stomach-curling laughs that drove tears to Jenna’s eyes – wait a minute!

“Jenna, you’re blue!” Blake said, too stunned to realise that he was repeating what Vila had already said. Jenna skin, usually space-pale, had taken on a vibrant shade of blue. It wasn’t the disturbing blue of too little blood circulation – it rather looked as though she had fallen into a pot of paint, only her hair and clothes were untouched. Blake gaped, then looked over at Vila – who was sporting a pattern of rainbow freckles that spread all across every exposed bit of skin.

Surely he had to be dreaming. Blake rubbed his eyes again – and gulped. His hand was _striped._ A bright, orange-red pattern all across his arms, across his torso where his shirt hung open. It was probably on his face too. “What’s going on?!”

“You look a bit like a raccoon, Blake,” Vila chimed cheerfully. “Only the colour is all wrong.”

Blake turned around sharply and stared through the open door into the mirror in his cabin, the one on the wardrobe door he always forgot to close. The pattern hadn’t stopped short of his face – and Vila was right. The orange-red formed a garish mask about his eyes and nose, rather like that of the ancient Earth animal. Blake closed his eyes for a moment, though he knew the pattern would still be there when he opened them again.

“One would hope,” a sardonic voice suddenly sounded from down the corridor, “that rest periods would actually be _quiet_ , even on this ship.”

“Avon.” Blake turned around to him, and found that Avon had trailed to a stop steps away from his own room. Frustratingly, he looked perfectly normal, though the moment of stunned surprise in Avon’s eyes was gratifying. Less gratifying was the barely suppressed smirk that followed it.

Avon folded his arms and leant casually against the corridor wall. “This is something new, at least.”

“Look, Avon, can you make it go away?” Vila asked, pushing in front of Jenna to step closer to Avon.

Avon scanned his face and the smirk grew a little brighter. “It’s hardly a computer fault, Vila.”

Blake sighed. “Any theories what caused this?”

“A few.” Avon pushed himself upright. “All right. Let’s see whether the medical computers come up with something.”

 

Down in the medical unit, Blake learned that Cally, who was on watch, was equally as unaffected as Avon seemed to be, though it was difficult to tell under Avon’s black shirt and trousers. His _face and hands_ were clear, but that didn’t mean…

Vila leant in conspiratorially. “I bet he’s green all over under that black shirt. Bet he covered his face in a layer of make-up.”

Not in a million years would Blake admit that he had been thinking the same thing. Instead, he directed his attention to Avon, who was scanning the result of the medical scan on the monitor. “Well?”

“Nothing life-threatening.”

“What do we do, then?”

Avon shut the monitor down. “It will probably fade on its own. If it doesn’t, we can reconsider our options.”

Blake ground his teeth. “We cannot raid a Federation base like this.”

“Whyever not? The Federation might appreciate the… ah, splash of colour.”

Vila burst into a fit of giggles, which made the corners of Avon’s mouth twitch.

Blake frowned. “Out of the question. We cannot chance a sign of vulnerability getting out on Federation propaganda.”

“Vulnerability? You’re orange, Blake, that is all. Your body and mind seem to functioning as well as they ever do.”

“Give it a week, Blake,” Jenna said, the first reasonable thing Blake had heard since walking out of his cabin earlier. “We could use the rest anyway, and if it isn’t gone by then we look for solutions.”

“You’ll want it gone sooner,” Vila told her. “I hear being blue can be quite sartorially challenging.” He ducked away from the under Jenna’s glare and slipped out of the medical unit, still grinning.

 

Vila, for his part, seemed to love the challenge – when Blake saw him on the flight deck next, he had exchanged his usually muted earthy colours for something in all shades of the rainbow, not unlike the small dots that peppered his skin. Defying Blake’s expectations, Avon hadn’t even protested the eyesore – it was giving _Blake_ a headache.

“Does it itch?” Cally asked suddenly, out of the… Blake’s gaze travelled to Jenna, and he halted that thought. No, there was more than enough blue around.

“No,” he told Cally. “It’s just a damn nuisance.” He hardly recognised himself in the mirror, and jumped every time he passed a reflective surface. He’d never noticed how many of those there were on _Liberator_ before.

“Have you considered covering it?”

Blake had considered it – had even tried, but the bright colour defied any concealing gel. He had no idea how Avon had managed it. “Avon hasn’t cared to share his tricks,” he said, rather bitterly.

Avon looked up from his console at his name. “What?”

“Come now, Avon. Cally isn’t affected because she is from Auron. _You_ aren’t. This is embarrassing enough without you pretending to be fine. Besides, you will get make-up into those precious tools of yours.”

Avon laid down the probe he’d been toying with as he was reading with exaggerated care. “ _I_ haven’t changed colour, Blake.”

“Come off it, Avon. Blake is right. You are as human as the rest of us, no matter how much you pretend otherwise.”

Avon glared at Jenna, then stepped out from behind his console, picking up the bottle of water standing by it, and walked to the front of the flight deck. Away from the sensitive equipment, Blake realised a moment later when Avon uncapped the bottle and poured water over his hands, rubbing them together briefly. His skin reddened from the friction, but didn’t otherwise reveal any strange colours. Avon shook his hands out and brushed the remaining water off on his trouser leg. “Satisfied?”

“Roll up your sleeve,” Jenna ordered, brusquely.

Avon sighed and did as she had asked. There was nothing there, either.

“Do you want to check the… private bits, too?” Vila asked with a leer that faded when Avon shot him a glare.

“I haven’t changed colour – _anywhere_ ,” he told them, and looked at Blake. “Does it meet your approval if I get back to work now?”

Blake nodded. “Yes, all right. I’m sorry, I just assumed…”

“Well, you were wrong.” Avon gathered up the water and returned to his console, rubbing his hands again to make sure no water remained before he touched the controls.

“Wonder why, though,” Vila mumbled from his station, but no one paid him any attention.

 

Blake kept his eyes closed until he was standing in front of the mirror in the morning, hoping fervently that the orange would be gone. It wasn’t. It hadn’t faded either, nor did it the next morning. Nor the morning after that. He asked Cally to check him over then, but she insisted there was no visible threat from the strange phenomenon. Avon, of course, was still his normal colour, and his smirk whenever he looked at Blake was starting to grate on Blake’s nerves. Jenna had risen to the challenge and found a rather fetching blouse to go with her new skin colour, and Vila – Vila was back to normal.

It had taken Blake embarrassingly long to realise – already it was midday. He couldn’t even be sure whether the rainbow spots, subtler than Jenna and his markings, had still been there during breakfast. “Vila!”

Vila’s head snapped up from the board game he was playing with Avon, and he dropped a game token. “Must you bellow so, Blake?”

“You’re – well, you’re back to normal!”

“Oh, that. Yes. Faded all on its own, just like Avon said.”

“Then why are Jenna and I still…?”

“Presumably, your bodies are slightly different from Vila’s,” Avon drawled, not even looking up from the game, “after all, _he_ is barely human.”

“Oh yeah? Well, at least I’m just human enough to have changed colour at all!” Vila shot back without missing a beat.

To Blake’s astonishment, Avon actually grinned at that. “Well now, if that is one of the… perks, I count myself lucky to have been left out of the experience.”

Blake sighed and turned on his heel to head to his cabin to… definitely not sulk.

 

The orange was _still_ there in the morning. And Vila was still freckle-less. Blake caught him alone in the kitchen, making himself a hot drink, and didn’t miss the look of guilty amusement Vila threw his way as he walked in.

“Vila, why that guilty face?” Blake asked with feigned friendliness.

“What? Oh, it’s you, Blake. What did you say?”

Blake wasn’t fooled by Vila’s put-on innocence. “What have you been up to, Vila?”

“Me? Nothing at all. ‘s nice to relax for a bit, isn’t it?”

“Vila, you’re rambling.”

“Yes. I do that sometimes. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed before.”

“Oh, you might as well tell him, Vila,” Avon’s voice suddenly cut into the nervous prattle.

Blake spun around to find him leaning against the door frame. Avon didn’t even bother to hide his smile as he scanned Blake’s face.  

“With the mood they’ve been in, it isn’t as funny as it was at the start,” Avon said, still speaking to Vila, though his gaze remained on Blake’s face.

“You _know_ what caused this!” Blake snapped.

Avon shrugged. “Yes.”

“And you told Vila but not Jenna and me? Why, Avon?!”

“ _Vila_ asked the right questions.”

“Cally was in on it, too, y'know? And Avon isn’t actually that good at lying,” Vila chimed in from behind Blake, and Avon shifted his gaze to glare at him.

“It would have faded already,” Avon said at last, “if you had found it in you to eat something else for dinner once in the last few days.”

“It was in the food?”

“Yes… that… vegetable we picked up from Farron III, according to Orac.”

“Poison?!”   

Avon frowned. “Use your _head_ , Blake! Of course it wasn’t poison, or do you imagine I would have stood by to watch…” Avon trailed off, shook his head and continued again in an indifferent voice: “Excessive consumption merely causes an… _atypical_ allergic reaction in humans.”

Vila chuckled in Blake’s back.

Blake tried hard to ignore him and unclench his fist. “An allergic reaction?”

“Which would have faded on its own – _if_ you had stopped consuming the vegetable, which clearly you haven’t.”

“It tastes good,” Blake said, faintly aware that he sounded sheepish.

Avon smiled one of his not-smiles. “Evidently.”

“But you and Cally ate of it, too! Why weren’t you affected at all?”

“Cally, because, as you said, she is Auronar. Me, because I take the precaution of taking antihistamines before trying any mystery food – as should you all.”  

“All right, Avon. But you could have told us.”

Avon pushed away from the door. “I could have – but I was enjoying the rest. And the… splash of colour. Make me one, too, Vila?”

“Don’t worry, Blake,” Vila said, taking another cup out. “You take one of those tablets and it’ll clear right up.”

Avon dug into one of his pockets and pulled out a small tin of tablets, tossing it to Blake. “There you are. I want them back later.” He stepped past him, joining Vila by the counter.

Blake picked one of the small pills out of the tin and chuckled, suddenly finding the humour in the situation. He turned to them both. “Do you think we should tell Jenna yet?”

Vila looked immediately nervous, and Avon shook his head. “At your peril, Blake. At _your_ peril.”


End file.
